The Europeanisation of Greek Foreign Policy: a Literature Review

The Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy: A literature review Stelios Stavridis1 1. Introduction This work reviews part of the literature on the Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy. It covers mainly studies published in English. It concentrates on the foreign policy of Greece, although it does refer to other areas whenever necessary. It is a pilot-study in that there is yet to be a thorough investigation of that particular aspect of Europeanisation. Moreover, on the theoretical side, a review of the literature shows that ‘Europeanisation’ is a term that is often used in the academic world but that there is no common definition of what it actually means. A very simple example of this confusion can be seen in the existing lack of agreement about its correct spelling. With an ‘s’ or with a ‘z’? It is interesting to note that most UK- based academic used the version with an ‘s’, whereas others, mainly from a US- background prefer a ‘z’. Computer-based spell-checks tend to prefer the American spelling, even when they are set under ‘English/UK’ language. Europeanisation, whichever way it is spelt, includes a number of possible definitions. Some stem from the wider considerations of globalization, Westernization, or even simply Americanization to take a more French-biased approach. This is a rather more traditional and historical approach to the problem of what Europeanisation actually means (see Olsen 2002: 17-19). With due respect to historians, this is not a very useful approach for a study on the Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy which concentrates on the years after Greece joined the European Union (EU, formerly the EEC). The historical approach does however have the merit of putting more recent events into a wider perspective. This is important for Greece, not only as it has a long history, but also 1 In 2002-03, Dr Stavridis was Onassis Foundation Fellow, EKEM/Hellenic Centre for European Studies, Athens, and Honorary Fellow, Hellenic Observatory, LSE European Institute, London. He currently holds the 2003 Mediterranean Chair, University of Valencia. These are the author’s own views and the usual proviso about responsibility applies here too. 1 because of the fact that until very recently it has held a rather ambivalent towards Europe and the West widely defined (see Ioakimidis 1995). A more traditional approach of what Europeanisation means comes from comparative politics, and in particular research on public policy. It examines the impact of the process of integration in Europe (until very recently meaning exclusively Western Europe) on the various national political systems of EU member states. It is important at this stage to differentiate between integration (and in particular European integration) and Europeanisation. This study will not enter a theoretical discussion about this distinction (see Featherstone and Radaelli 2003a), but it is important to bear it in mind because in terms of chronological development research on the impact of integration has a longer tradition than that on Europeanisation (on integration theory see Chryssochoou, Tsinisizelis, Stavridis, Ifantis 2003: pp 1-40). It is fair to add that work on the latter has now become dominant in a number of academic studies, such as comparative public policy (for instance see the Queen's Papers Series on Europeanisation published by the Institute of European Studies at Queen's University of Belfast and available on the web2). One important distinction has been made between ‘politics’, ‘polity’ and ‘policy’ (as reported in Vaquer 2001:3). This distinction is important not only per se, but also because it allows for the additional use of international relations theory in general, and more particularly FPA (foreign policy analysis). Even more specifically the ‘domestic sources of foreign policy’ dimension of FPA is relevant to a study on the Europeanisation of foreign policy. Thus, a combination of these three approaches (Europeanisation, FPA and domestic sources) is vital for a comprehensive study on the Europeanisation of Greek Foreign Policy. The current work is informed by studies on the Europeanisation of Greek FP (Ioakimidis 2000; Ioakimidis 2001; Kouveliotis 2001), but also by other relevant studies on the Europeanisation of the foreign policies of other EU member states (whether this approach has been the main focus of these works -Featherstone and Kazamias 2001a; Closa 2001; Tonra 2001- or not (Manners and Whitman 2000)). 2 http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/WoPEc/data/erpqueens.html. 2 In terms of Greek foreign policy, the emphasis to date (see Ioakimidis 2000) has rightly been on the Europeanisation of its decision-making process and on its ‘style’, that is to say on its general approach to what is usually known as ethnika themata (issues of national importance). Traditionally these have included East-West relations (during the Cold War), the Middle East, but mainly, Turkey, Cyprus, and the Balkans. There has been considerable work on the way Greece, by now a full EU member state, handled the violent collapse of the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990s following the end of the Cold War. Greece’s idiosyncrasies were best highlighted by the ‘Macedonian Question’, or better said, the ‘New Macedonian Question’ (see Veremis 1995; Tziampiris 2000; Pettifer 1992; Economides 1993). Most studies criticized the heavy-handed and unilateral use of sanctions against FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) in 1994, once many Western states had recognised this new state despite previous sustained Greek efforts to the contrary. It is said that the then Prime Minister, the charismatic but populist Andreas Papandreou, decided to impose the embargo against the advice of many a Greek diplomat (see Ioakimidis 1999). Other geographical areas deserve attention as well. As do developments in the way Greek foreign policy is made in more general terms, that is to say now that the traditional personal approach to foreign policy (Ioakimidis 1999) has been replaced by a more institutionalised form of decision-making. Work on Greek-Turkish relations is also very important because it shows a rather important discrepancy between the current (since 1996 at least) governmental elites and public opinion in general. It is important to pay some particular attention to that aspect of the question nowadays, not only to show if there has been a Europeanisation of Greek foreign policy in that respect (and in relation to a solution to the Cyprus Problem), but also because of the failure of the Annan Plan in early 2003 (see Xenakis 2003; Theophanous 2003) which followed chronologically the success of Cyprus’ accession to the EU, as confirmed by the December 2002 Copenhagen European Council. This paper consists of two sections: • The first section (Section 2) discusses the theoretical debate about what constitutes ‘Europeanisation’. It concentrates on the use of the concept in the literature on foreign policies. 3 • The second section (Section 3) assesses the application of the concept of Europeanisation for Greece in general and for Greek foreign policy in particular. 2. The theoretical debate on ‘Europeanisation’ 2.1 Europeanisation There is plenty of existing literature on the subject and it is growing (for a recent review, see Olsen 2002). Its main focus deals with the structures of a state, i.e. with the ‘internalising’ of EU ‘habits’ (as expressed in EU decision and policy making structures). The literature on the theorizing of what Europeanisation means also gains from each of the empirical studies that are carried out. It is indeed common practice for each author of an empirical study to: - select their preferred definition of what is understood by the term ‘Europeanisation’ at the beginning of their work, and then - apply it to a concrete case-study. Featherstone and Kazamias take Europeanisation to mean ‘adaptation to the (west) European norms and practices’ (Featherstone and Kazamias 2001b: 4). They argue that it is more than just ‘integration’ and stress that although originally not confined to Europe, ‘the hijack is complete’ (p.5) as it is now used ‘largely as a description of the EU’s own processes and impacts’ (Ibid). They identify 3 key dimensions: - the increase and expansion of institutionalization at the EU level; - the relevant adjustment at the level of the member states; - other similar adjustments in non-member states. Whereas their edited volume concentrates on the last two dimensions, it is useful not only because of both its comparative dimension (Southern periphery: Italy, Catalonia, Portugal, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Malta) and its thematic approach (mainly focused on institutional and economic developments), but also because of its use of the literature on ‘institutionalism’. The editors conclude that, far from comforting the claim of ‘executive empowerment’, the empirical examples show rather a diffusion of executive power in what has been described as a ‘multi-level governance’ framework (p.10). This dimension is particularly important when it is linked to Ioakimidis’ study of the Greek 4 case in the same volume (see below). In broader terms, it brings in a link between the process of integration and the issue of a democratic deficit in the EU. This approach deserves further investigation. As for the wider implications of the Featherstone/Kazamias volume, they offer a number of conceptual definitions of what Europeanisation means (pp. 13-15), but they stress the need for more empirical studies (which their own volume is all about). They present (pp 15-16) the following 6 dimensions as necessary for any good analysis of Europeanisation: - institutional adaptation within government; - transformation in the structural power of domestic actors; - adjustment of domestic macroeconomic regime; - new dynamic with the domestic party system; - pressure to redefine national identity; - a strategic tool in the pursuit of FP interests. The first two points are ‘easily’ identifiable and thus most research has concentrated on them, and the last two are particularly important for the current study.

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